The legal fight over California's gay marriage ban is exploding, as new revelations bring the trial's simmering controversies to a boil. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the judge overseeing the federal challenge to the state's Proposition 8 is himself homosexual. Prop 8 supporters are accusing Judge Vaughn Walker of bias — but is Walker being unfairly maligned?

The Supreme Court has already called out Walker's bias: Walker crossed the line almost immediately, says Ed Whelan at the National Review. In his "fervent desire" to broadcast the trial (thus, inviting harassment of pro-Prop 8 witnesses), Walker resorted to "procedural shenanigans," only to be shut down by the Supreme Court "in an opinion that was plainly a stinging rebuke of Walker’s lack of impartiality." "Judge Walker's skewed judgment"

Walker is fair-minded, but should have opted out: Judge Walker "is not a predictable man," says Debra J Saunders at the S.F. Chronicle, and there's no reason to think he'll be biased. But I still think he should have "recused himself from this case." Even the "appearance of a conflict [of interest]" plays into the hands of Prop 8's supporters. For a truly impartial trial, he should have handed it over to "some other judge.""Does Walker have a conflict?"